Hi! I'm barbex from the960writers and barbex and I want you to write your story. Masterposts. The Discord server. Check out the960writers for more writing advice.
Writing in the summer, with camaraderie, deadlines, and accountability.
June, July, and August
Announcement is here, first post here.
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Ongoing:
Planning all the plans!
Last day of the month we make writing plans for the coming month. Post is here.
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Ongoing:
SloMo WriNo, Write your novel in a year
Welcome to The Slower Moving way to Write a Novel! Or SloMoWrino for short.
This challenge doesn't focus on getting you to write faster, but on developing a solid writing habit, and writing your novel in a more relaxed way.
This project is run by Maree and the first post is here.
You can subscribe to the #slomowrino tag to make sure you see all the posts here, or subscribe to Maree's substack.
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The projects through the years:
2025:
May and June 2025:
Sunday, May 4 until Sunday, June 29 2025.
Daily writing, set your own goal, make a post about hitting your goal, get a star. Post is here.
Getting to know your story (through writing it)
A special writing event for discovery writers. Masterpost is here. Here is the last post with links to all the advice. You can still follow along with these posts at your own pace.
Write your novel in 2024 2025
Slow and steady, write and finish your novel this year.
The masterpost is here, or start here at the first post and go through the tag #slomowrino. Subscribe to the substack to get everything in one place
2024:
Write 40k in 42 days
Start: 4th of August 2024
End: 14th of September 2024
40k First post is here.
Write a short story in 60 days
Write and finish a short story to publish yourself or submit it to traditional publishers.
The start post is here and the tag is #60daysshortstory. this project is done, but you can still use the resources.
2023:
Fall of 2023, the begin of SloMoWriNo https://www.tumblr.com/the-wip-project/736076610461138944/slomo-wrino-master-post
Spring 2023, the start with a special writing docket to download: https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/711609740849037313/the-wip-project-2023
2022:
Here’s the masterpost for 2022’s 90 days to first draft: https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/676795295564234752/the-wip-project-2022-masterpost
2021:
100 days of writing. The tag is here, and here are four posts I find especially notable about The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger:
Two short projects in this year. https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/190175623889/the-wip-project-2020 and https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/627604336988618752/im-so-busy-are-you-busy-too-i-was-trying-to
Note how I keep pushing for accountability posts. I'm convinced that accountability posts are the key to getting shit done, but very few people actually do it.
2019:
Where it all started, complete with a sign-up form and prizes. The prizes made everything extremely stressful for me, so I'm not doing that again 😂😂😂. https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/185566159309/the-wip-project-2019
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It's already week eleven (anybody else think that the word eleven written out looks fake? Just me? ok then) and summer has me well in its grasp.
It's hot, there's so much going on, and the writing kind of drops off the table. Just like this post, fall off the laptop it did. The post is late because it was not written before I went off on a camping trip to København, where I collected an absurd amount of steps walking through the city and only this morning remembered that I owe you guys a post.
And because this whole last week did not work as a writing week for me, I hereby give me and you and all of us a permission slip:
Permission to take a break and enjoy summer for a few days and then get back into writing without feeling guilty.
Happy summer, happy writing!
~barbex
I still have a calendar for your notes for this week though (as always also on the GDrive):
Snippet from this week’s writing and reflections below.
Managed to hit the exact number of words I needed for both July and week 9. Not on purpose though.
I don't have a ton to add to my monthly recap from a couple days ago, except that there definitely aren't 5,000 words left in the story I'm writing. My goal for August is another 5,000 words, so I'll have to decide if I relax that or if I start working on the fic I've been outlining.
Speaking of which, I think my goal for that story this week is to buckle down and figure out the ending. I've made tremendous progress, but I'm not 100% sure what I'm progressing toward. I know where I want the characters to ultimately end up, but when and how do they arrive there? At what point do I stop writing them? What's the natural end of the story?
And that's about all I've got right now.
Snippet
Ryland sucked in a sharp breath through his nose and swiveled so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet to find that the alien approaching him was —
An Eridian.
Fudge.
Last week Barbex talked about how to figure out what sort of schedule and habits work for you. And of course the first step in doing that is tracking those habits.
Honestly tracking my own behaviour is something I am pretty bad at.
Simply logging how many words I've written in a session often feels like the worst sort of torture. Often because I have a certain level of shame. I'm very well aware that my writing habits can be erratic. I get bored, I get Shiny New Idea, or sometimes I get overwhelmed and quit. And somehow, logging that instead of writing current novel, I wrote 1500 words of a brand new fic idea… it's a bit embarrassing. It's even worse when I'm supposed to be editing.
So I tend to be only tracking when I'm trying to engage with a challenge, and even then it never sits comfortably.
So instead of tracking myself this last week, I've been thinking about what sort of alternative tracking has worked best for me in the past, and if I can get myself to do anything like that in August.
For me, the best tracking I've ever done, was a sort a writer mood scarf. Each day that I wrote at least 150 words, I got to knit a couple of rows in a colour that reflected how I was feeling about my writing. I loved that entire process, and I do love the scarf I got out of it too. But I don't feel an urge to repeat it. I can't imagine how many striped scarves I'd have at this point!
The second most helpful kind of tracking I've done, is that for each day I've written to take a moment and post my favourite line of the day to tumblr.
After thinking about it a bit, I realised that both kinds of tracking are about reflection. Stepping out of the process, and thinking about how I felt. What I liked about my own writing.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the race for word-count, the pursuit of that elusive finish-line, the grind of the process, that we forget to think about why we're writing in the first place. And that reason is (hopefully) love. Love of story telling, love of the characters, love for the written word.
So for this final month of the challenge, I'm going to try to focus on what I enjoy about writing. I hope that's something you can do too!
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Last week Barbex talked about how to figure out what sort of schedule and habits work for you. And of course the first step in doing that is tracking those habits.
Honestly tracking my own behaviour is something I am pretty bad at.
Simply logging how many words I've written in a session often feels like the worst sort of torture. Often because I have a certain level of shame. I'm very well aware that my writing habits can be erratic. I get bored, I get Shiny New Idea, or sometimes I get overwhelmed and quit. And somehow, logging that instead of writing current novel, I wrote 1500 words of a brand new fic idea… it's a bit embarrassing. It's even worse when I'm supposed to be editing.
So I tend to be only tracking when I'm trying to engage with a challenge, and even then it never sits comfortably.
So instead of tracking myself this last week, I've been thinking about what sort of alternative tracking has worked best for me in the past, and if I can get myself to do anything like that in August.
For me, the best tracking I've ever done, was a sort a writer mood scarf. Each day that I wrote at least 150 words, I got to knit a couple of rows in a colour that reflected how I was feeling about my writing. I loved that entire process, and I do love the scarf I got out of it too. But I don't feel an urge to repeat it. I can't imagine how many striped scarves I'd have at this point!
The second most helpful kind of tracking I've done, is that for each day I've written to take a moment and post my favourite line of the day to tumblr.
After thinking about it a bit, I realised that both kinds of tracking are about reflection. Stepping out of the process, and thinking about how I felt. What I liked about my own writing.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the race for word-count, the pursuit of that elusive finish-line, the grind of the process, that we forget to think about why we're writing in the first place. And that reason is (hopefully) love. Love of story telling, love of the characters, love for the written word.
So for this final month of the challenge, I'm going to try to focus on what I enjoy about writing. I hope that's something you can do too!
Since I was giving out homework last week @the-wip-project Summer Writing to take notes about when, where, and how much we write, let's see how it looked for me:
I don't even care all that much about the specific numbers, but it is quite clear that writing on the couch with or without the TV on, is not very efficient. That was to be expected, of course.
There's a reason why I'm calling the former kid's room/guest room my writing room. It may not be much but it is a room with a computer where I actually write. Note to self: utilize this more.
Next I should try that thing with writing notes about what I want to write before I start. Maybe then I'll be faster?
Snippet from this month’s writing and reflections below.
Yes, I wrote exactly 5,000 words in July. I was writing last night, finished a sentence, checked my word count, saw where I was, and just had to stop and leave it there.
I'm feeling a little better about writing at the moment! I think a couple things contributed to that:
Reading this post and the linked substack. I feel like my Dark Night of the Soul doesn't happen at 90% (more like at 25%, 40%, then 50%, then 75%, etc. etc.) BUT it is helpful to know that it's not so unique and I like the idea of reframing it as a positive signal.
I took the characters from the story I'm writing to my Brainstorming Notebook and did a quick exercise where I did some thinking about their backstories. I'm a big fan of that piece of writing advice that says the author should know things about the character(s) that never make it to the page, but inform their actions. Knowing more about where the characters are coming from helped me understand HOW they should be behaving in this big scene that I've been struggling with. (And yes, I also included doing the what do they fear/what do they want/what are they wiling to do to get it exercise. I thought it wouldn't be helpful here, because as seriously as I've been treating this exercise, this fic still has kind of a silly premise. But you know what? It also helped.)
I'm also getting so super excited about starting the thing I'm plotting. Which I might get to do sooner than planned?
I say that because I have all the major scenes from the story I'm writing at least 90% done. I don't know if I have 5,000 more words to add to it. So for August, do I adjust my expectations down? (The thing I never do, because I consider it akin to failure?) Allow myself to start writing the story I've been planning if I finish the other one? We'll see!
Snippet
When the elevator disgorged him onto the second floor, Ryland found himself face-to-face with Redline’s frosted glass door. Why were there so many doors? The entrance from the street, the sliding mouth of the elevator — twice, once entering and once exiting — and now this. Every one gave Ryland a fresh chance to hyperventilate and chicken out.
(This is probably a little overwritten but whatever... I still have to edit.)
Snippet from this week’s writing and reflections below.
Do you want the good news first or the bad news?
Let's start with the bad so we can end on a high note. Continuing to struggle on the writing side of the challenge. The entire fic is leading up to one scene and that's the scene I've been massaging to death both last week and this week. It's not what I want it to be, and it's THE scene, so that's frustrating. I dragged my feet on writing all week because I didn't want to face it, then met the goal yesterday by writing a different short scene that I'm not sure will even make it into the story at all.
(Really feel like giving up on it. Really trying not to.)
On a more positive note, I applied the what do they fear/what do they want/what are they willing to do to get it questions to the characters in the story I'm plotting and it really helped me unlock one of their motivations. It was a tough question to answer at first, because although I instinctively knew how he would respond to the situation, I was having a hard time articulating why*. Forcing myself to dig into that made it all a lot clearer, and I was able to plot out the next section. I'm probably 1/2 to 2/3 done with the basic structure of the entire thing. Exciting!
* Because it's way too close to my own personal issues heh.
Snippet
[I observe that purpose in biological male appears to be pleasure,] Rocky said smugly. [I make science discovery!]
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It was difficult for me to find something to write about for you today (that's why the post is late). I thought it should be a post about productivity, but as I was skimming through posts and books about productivity for writers, it felt kind of pointless because we already talked about all that. I know all this already and I'm sure you know it too.
Make it a habit, set small goals, do writing sprints. Where ever I looked, all advice basically boiled down to this. @mareebrittenford wrote about writing sprints in week six, and I'm pretty sure I have mentioned habit forming a hundred times on this blog. Maybe it just feels that way, but whenever I hear "the secret trick is to form a habit for daily writing" I just want to yell "Yes, I know! That's not the problem!".
As I did my mental scream, some inner voice, very calmly, said: So, what is the problem?
Inner voices can be such assholes.
The problem is... that I don't know what the problem is.
Which reminded of this ancient post by Rachel Aaron/Bach, in which she describes how she perfected her writing process. One point she makes is that she had only a vague idea what her process even was and she started to take notes to figure out what worked well.
And that's going to be our homework for this week, and I'm going to tag you all as a little wake up call:
Take notes this week: When did you write, how long, in what environment (office, cafe, couch), and how many words did each session yield?
Once you know better what works best for you, the next step is going to be to replicate the best situation, but that's something for later. For now, let's figure out what works.
It was difficult for me to find something to write about for you today (that's why the post is late). I thought it should be a post about productivity, but as I was skimming through posts and books about productivity for writers, it felt kind of pointless because we already talked about all that. I know all this already and I'm sure you know it too.
Make it a habit, set small goals, do writing sprints. Where ever I looked, all advice basically boiled down to this. @mareebrittenford wrote about writing sprints in week six, and I'm pretty sure I have mentioned habit forming a hundred times on this blog. Maybe it just feels that way, but whenever I hear "the secret trick is to form a habit for daily writing" I just want to yell "Yes, I know! That's not the problem!".
As I did my mental scream, some inner voice, very calmly, said: So, what is the problem?
Inner voices can be such assholes.
The problem is... that I don't know what the problem is.
Which reminded of this ancient post by Rachel Aaron/Bach, in which she describes how she perfected her writing process. One point she makes is that she had only a vague idea what her process even was and she started to take notes to figure out what worked well.
And that's going to be our homework for this week, and I'm going to tag you all as a little wake up call:
Take notes this week: When did you write, how long, in what environment (office, cafe, couch), and how many words did each session yield?
Once you know better what works best for you, the next step is going to be to replicate the best situation, but that's something for later. For now, let's figure out what works.
Back in business baby! :D Sometimes this week I was on a roll and didn't want to stop, other times I got around the minimum and that's okay. I'm making a lot of progress on this WIP and even had flash of brilliance for a paragraph. @the-wip-project
As part of summer writing 2026 at @the-wip-project, I'm still noodling around and away at the original fiction, taking the occasional break from it with fanfiction. But I noticed that the "breaks" keep getting longer, which is good for the fanfics that really need some updates, not so good for the damn original fic that was supposed to be done by this point.
This week's homework is based on V.E. Schwab's questions to answer to create memorable characters:
1) what they fear?
2) what they want?
3) what they're willing to do to get it?
And maybe I should think about that a little bit. The one big difference between original fiction and fanfiction is that I don't know the characters all that well in my original fiction. In fanfiction, certain things are set, even if I veer in out-of-character scenes all the time. But I think I can write these scenes convincingly enough to take my readers along.
With the original fiction, I only have a few vague ideas about the characters, expecting them to come more alive as I write them. But, wouldn't you know, that's like really a lot of work! I feel like I'm writing forward, dragging the characters along, while they, reluctantly, let me know how they feel about all that.
Maybe I need to know them a little better?
Let's see, my main protagonist is Sonja, newly divorced woman who gets dragged into a fantasy world via a portal. She meets a man acting as her guide in this world. His names is Kayden (for now, names are temporary), young, kind, and handsome.
The idea for the story is the older woman being made to fulfill a prophecy with her young guide, her slightly grumpy about this stupid quest, him all golden retriever sunshine, as they fall in love and... well there's a another group involved, also a dragon, well, the rest is kind of foosy goosy loosy...
On with the questions:
What do they fear? Sonja fears that she's too old and damaged for happiness now. Kayden fears that he will not meet the expectations set upon him.
What do they want? Sonja wants to be someone for once in her life. After years of feeling invisible in her unhappy marriage, she wants to make an impact now. Kayden wants to fulfill the prophecy, because he has been raised in the knowledge that this is his destiny.
What they're willing to do to get it? Damn, that's a tough one. At this point in the story, Sonja just wants this all over and done with, but that will change, later. But Kayden? I don't really know.
You know, this was quite helpful, at least in showing me what I don't know. I won't be filling out any character questionnaires, but I will think about these questions and how they influence my story some more.
Snippet from this week’s writing and reflections below.
After a few weeks where progress felt easier if not consistent, this was a rough one. I'll admit that this is in no small part due to the fact that I've completely messed up my sleep schedule again, and I have a hard time (1) writing and (2) feeling positive when I'm this tired.
The other challenge is that the story is spiraling a little, which happens with most things I write. I'm having a hard time wrapping up a critical scene, and I just keep expanding on it and expanding on it to the point where I know I'm well past its natural end, but it just keeps going. I also think I'm losing the characters' voices more and more the longer it drags. Maybe I'll try the editing/rewriting trick that worked for me so well a few weeks ago.
I did have one really good writing day, which was the 16th, where I wrote 311 words. This was the day after chatting about the idea with a fandom... friend? mutual? acquaintance? which actually made me feel excited about the idea again. Something to consider. I typically don't talk a lot about what I'm writing ahead of time because then I feel like I've told the story and I don't have to write it anymore and I lose my motivation. I also don't have a huge community in this fandom (yet?). But maybe I need to find a way to share a little bit more than I am.
(The 509 words yesterday was NOT in any way a good writing day. That was vomiting out words to meet a goal.)
On a more positive note, I'm making huge progress on breaking down some of the issues in the fic I'm plotting/outlining, and I'm looking forward to maybe actually writing it. (Although I know I'll go through all of these same painful stages with it if I do :)
Snippet
Ryland was shaking everywhere. Outside. Inside. In places he didn’t know could shake. His spleen was probably quivering.
(I promise I'm calling him Grace in the fic I'm plotting.)
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
According to my plan (I do not have a plan) we should all be deep in our stories, maybe even right in the dreaded middle by now. Or, if you're like me, you're still kind of stuck at finding what the story wants to be as you noodle around in scenes that may or may not be part of a coherent thing one day.
As I was procrastinating reading around in my inbox full of newsletters, I came across a delightful post by Maggie Stiefvater (sorry, it's Substack), which talked about why character questionnaires don't do anything for her, because they focus on superficial descriptions instead of what actually makes the core of the characters. Which reminded me of this old post by VA Schwab:
And because my tagging system is immaculate 🤣, I found it on my writing blog with a great explanation by Diane Duane.
All this to say, here's some reading for you and when you've done that, let's talk about your characters. At this point in your summer writing, you probably have some general idea about your characters (look at me circling back to the beginning of this post). But we don't want to fill out questionnaires about hair- and eye-color, we want to know what makes the core of our characters.
Back to V.E. Schwab's three questions, do you know
1) what they fear,
2) what they want,
3) what they're willing to do to get it?
How about a post about this? Let us see your characters and what you know about them. You might find out something new about your story and characters.
Here's the calendar for this week (as always also on the google drive):
According to my plan (I do not have a plan) we should all be deep in our stories, maybe even right in the dreaded middle by now. Or, if you're like me, you're still kind of stuck at finding what the story wants to be as you noodle around in scenes that may or may not be part of a coherent thing one day.
As I was procrastinating reading around in my inbox full of newsletters, I came across a delightful post by Maggie Stiefvater (sorry, it's Substack), which talked about why character questionnaires don't do anything for her, because they focus on superficial descriptions instead of what actually makes the core of the characters. Which reminded me of this old post by VA Schwab:
And because my tagging system is immaculate 🤣, I found it on my writing blog with a great explanation by Diane Duane.
All this to say, here's some reading for you and when you've done that, let's talk about your characters. At this point in your summer writing, you probably have some general idea about your characters (look at me circling back to the beginning of this post). But we don't want to fill out questionnaires about hair- and eye-color, we want to know what makes the core of our characters.
Back to V.E. Schwab's three questions, do you know
1) what they fear,
2) what they want,
3) what they're willing to do to get it?
How about a post about this? Let us see your characters and what you know about them. You might find out something new about your story and characters.
Here's the calendar for this week (as always also on the google drive):
